No chance of Manchester road charging scheme returning
No chance of Manchester road charging scheme returning
There will be no attempt to resurrect the road charging scheme in Manchester following a change of policy by the government.
Authorities in Manchester had hoped to introduce a road charging system in order to secure £2.8 billion worth of investment for public transport schemes.
However, the plan was defeated in a public vote in December 2008 and council officials were forced to search for other methods of funding for upgrades to the public transport infrastructure.
Any lingering doubt about whether plans for a London-style congestion charge would be resurrected in Manchester ended when the government announced this week that it is replacing the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) with the Urban Challenge Fund.
In order to receive TIF funding, local authorities had to commit to introducing road charging, but the new fund requires councils to meet much less stringent criteria in order to benefit from investment.
Gordon Telling, head of urban logistics policy for the Freight Transport Association, welcomed the news and repeated his belief that there are more effective ways of cutting pollution from the roads than congestion charging.
He suggested that further use of consolidation centres, quiet night-time delivery programmes and better street planning would allow local authorities to "make significant improvements without spending a significant slab of public cash".
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